This scholarly and informative monograph is a rewritten version of the author's doctoral dissertation (Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, 1999, more safely entitled "Anglo-Saxon Perceptions of the Arabs, Ismaelites and Saracens"). Like the article, "Old English References to the Saracens," Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Lynne Grundy, ed. J. Roberts and J. Nelson (London, 2000), 483-509, the original dissertation is not listed in the monograph's bibliography, which is a pity, as this author has become one of the great authorities on the depiction of the East in Anglo-Saxon literature.
The book under review here retains the systematic analysis of its doctoral origins, but now appears as an elegant and topical account, engagingly written, unstuffy yet detailed. Its topic, the perception of Arabs, Ismaelites, and Saracens in Anglo-Latin and Old English literature, involves literary analysis of texts written by Anglo-Saxons and foreign texts circulating in early England. Although some archaeological and cultural objects are also included (for example Kufic coins, 54-9, and other imported goods, such as medicinals, spices, pepper, pottery, silk, and lapis lazuli, 60-7), it is made clear that evidence for historical contact between Anglo-Saxon England and the East is rare. There is, however, other, more plentiful material to be studied: "Evidence for Anglo-Saxon awareness of the Islamic world survives mostly in the form of literary records," (3). The focus here is therefore clearly on Anglo-Saxon literary history which can provide us with some idea of what the Anglo-Saxons "thought" about Eastern culture. Most of the discussion necessarily focuses on Latin ("In England, references to Saracens were, apparently, largely restricted to Latin writings until the tenth century," (226); Old English literature only enters the discussion after 165 pages. The main sources are Pseudo-Methodius, Jerome (Vulgate, hagiography and Biblical commentaries), Bede (Biblical commentaries and other writings), hagiographical pilgrims' accounts (Hygeburg, Adomnan), and the Canterbury Commentaries. Scarfe Beckett also manages to contextualize her erudite literary analysis with modern cultural theory (above all the work of E. W. Said and N. Daniel), and contemporary issues (post-colonial theory and modern politics). The net is cast wide into an ocean of secondary literature on Islamic culture, both synchronic and diachronic. This monograph here focuses synchronically on Anglo-Saxon England, whilst also providing glimpses of the diachronic history before the Anglo-Saxon period and post-Conquest afterlife. The author shows herself aware of the methodological problem: how to do justice to the complexity of an individual period or theme (Islam in Renaissance England, Saracens in the "chansons de geste," Saracens in Merovingian texts, etc) whilst trying also to do justice to the entire history of some of the ideas found within that period or theme (Saracens are devoted to Venus, Muhammad is an Ismaelite, etc.) (17). The questions addressed in this study are clearly laid out on p. 2: "From what sources other than Rome might the Anglo-Saxons have learnt about Islam? Why does [Georgius of Ostia] refer to "Saraceni" rather than to "Arabes" or some equivalent of the word "Muslim"? Do other references to Saracens, Muslims, or Arabs survive in Anglo-Saxon literature? Did any objects other than coins reach England from Islamic territories? What, if anything, did [the Anglo-Saxons] think about the newly instituted religion and empire of Islam? The aim of this book is to explore these questions and to attempt some answers with reference to texts and objects which have survived from Anglo-Saxon England." The author presents a similarly concise and lucid section of conclusions: for example, "in Anglo-Saxon England a poor view of Saracens does not seem to have involved a location "Oriens" nor a racial dislike different from any other dislike of peoples who lived outside civilisation," (237), or the idea that "educated Anglo-Saxons perceived the Saracens as a biblical people who lived near the Holy Land as they had done in the Old Testament. Their name was explained in terms of an entirely plausible etymology which identified them as Ismaelites or Hagarenes. Their characteristics were defined according to their ancestry in Genesis and they behaved correspondingly as Ismaelites ought, living as violent raiders on the edge of civilisation, worshipping false gods and persecuting the local Christian community of the Holy Land. The beginning of the seventh century marked no change in this picture," (243). This book also has something to offer to scholars specializing in post-Conquest English literature, including an interesting section on "Persisting theories about Saracens in post-Conquest England" (Chapter 9, including, for example, the notion that "for centuries it remained possible for the authors of Christian texts to state that the Saracens had named themselves wrongfully and associated their religious practice with the planet or goddess Venus," (9)), in which the author nevertheless shows herself aware that ideas persisting in post-Conquest England could also have been re-introduced, and need not necessarily be based on Anglo-Saxon traditions.
This book should not be misunderstood as a contribution to the European history of ideas or European historiography. The word "Islamic" in the title seems to have misled the Times Literary Supplement (14 May 2004, disappointingly under "Anglo-Saxon History") to have it reviewed as poor history of ideas, when it clearly is good literary scholarship, drawing on major authors and plentiful literary evidence reflecting the fact that the Eastern tribes were an important literary preoccupation of Anglo-Saxon authors. Nothing like Scarfe Beckett's work has been published before on Anglo-Saxon literature; J. V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (2002), with which Scarfe Beckett's monograph has been compared, says next to nothing on Anglo-Saxon literature (and has a completely different, if equally laudable, aim). The critical and impatient reaction to Scarfe Beckett's book serves to demonstrate the dangers of interdisciplinarity, which in rare cases leads reviewers to misunderstand and underestimate disciplinary aims.
The disciplinary repercussions are important: this book has important things to say on the authorship, and Anglo-Saxon transmission and reception of Bede, Jerome, Pseudo-Methodius, shared idiosyncracies between these authors, the Anglo-Saxon portrayal of the Eastern tribes (Egyptians, Jews, other biblical and apocryphal tribes, all very important preoccupations of Anglo-Saxon authors), and will throw up interesting links to other research on, for instance, the description of hostile paganism, evil, the monstrous races, the Vikings, the kin of Cain, and Gildas on the Anglo-Saxon invasions. Scarfe Beckett shows that the Saracens were not portrayed as "the sole enemies of the church," (233-4), and ironic parallels can also be drawn between the outlandish evil in our midst described by Anglo-Saxon authors and modern fears about Muslim encroachment on Western culture from immigrants and terrorists. With so many major preoccupations of Anglo-Saxon literature touched upon, this study represents a secure stepping-stone for future research. Scarfe Beckett's superb opening chapter would have made an excellent keynote lecture for a conference on the portrayal of the East in Anglo-Saxon Literature.
The book contains very few errors of fact or presentation, and is, like other volumes in this prestigious series, accurately formatted. It deserves a knowledgeable, expert audience specializing in the literary history of Anglo-Saxon England who will greatly appreciate Scarfe Beckett's detailed literary analysis.